MLB.com beat writer Brian McTaggart blogs about all things Astros.

Reaction to HR controversy

Astros manager Brad Mills was angry Tuesday night after the umpiring crew at Busch Stadium didn’t overturn a controversial home run call in the first inning. Albert Pujols’ two-run home run, which appeared to hit the top of the wall and come back into play, was upheld after the umpires consulting replay.

Here are some reactions from both clubhouses and the umpires locker room:

Mills: “The whole system, I think, has to be reviewed if everyone looks at it and says it’s not a home run. The reason being, somebody in New York is supposed to have seen it. That’s my understanding, and they should have seen the same thing everybody saw. I totally don’t understand it. The whole thing’s got to be reviewed, especially if they go back and look at it and screw it up. We’ve got to be able to protest it or something. Something’s amiss here. The whole thing’s got to be reviewed.”

CF Michael Bourn, who was closest to the play: “I didn’t think it went over. [Pujols] told me at first base it did, but I didn’t think it did. I thought it hit the top and came back. The way it bounced back to me, I thought if it went over it would have hit that concrete and kept going the other way. When it hit, it hit the thing and bounced right back to me, so that’s why I played it like that. The umpires ruled it was a home run, so what could you do about that? That was the end of it from there.”

RHP Brett Myers, who gave up the homer: “I heard it hit the wall. If it hit the concrete behind it, it wouldn’t have made the noise it made. He hit it good, there’s no doubt about it. I looked at it on a couple of [replay] angles and I don’t know how they missed it really, unless they looked at it from one angle and said ‘Oh yeah, it’s a homer, it hit the concrete behind it.’ It didn’t look like it on there.”

Umpire crew chief Jim Reynolds: “Once it crosses that pad, anything after that is a home run. So what we saw on the replay was the ball skip off the top of the pad, hit the concrete behind it and come back. Once it hit that concrete, once the replay that we looked at showed that it hit the concrete behind it, then it’s a home run.”

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa: “Normally you don’t get a rebound like that unless it hits something behind the fence, like the railing or it hits the cement or something. If it comes off the wall, you don’t get that kind of [rebound]. We had a good feeling that they made the right call. You don’t get that kind of bounce back unless it hits something really hard. You don’t even get it off a sign.”

Pujols: “It was tough for me to see, but the whole reason I thought it was a home run was because it bounced like 10 yards over his head. it had to hit something hard. I thought it hit the little concrete behind the pad. I don’t think hitting that pad it would have gone that far over his head.”

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